The meltdown that left 45 million Twitter users unable to access the service on Thursday came in two waves and was directed at a single blogger who has voiced his support for the Republic of Georgia in that country’s continuing conflict with Russia....Early Thursday, the attackers sent out a wave of spam in the name of Cyxymu. ...“They’re literally designed to smear someone’s online reputation,” said Ms. Jones. “These hackers wanted to make him look responsible for millions of spam e-mails that went out yesterday morning.” ...The attacks coincided with the one-year anniversary of the Russia-Georgian conflict. “When the conflict started a year ago, there were various denial-of-service attacks coming from both sides, attacking Web sites.”

There you have it, knee-jerkers. And thanks to This American Life's show pro se for a-larnin' me what a psychopath is.